Italian energy company Snam has revealed that it would invest €1bn ($1.09bn) in its LNG offshore terminal near Ravenna which will host the FSRU BW Singapore.
.The new terminal will have an annual capacity of 5 bcm of gas and start commercial activity in early 2025. The FSRU will add to the supplies from the FSRU Golar Tundra, operational in Piombino since July 2023.
Snam is currently working to prepare an offshore platform some 8.5 kilometres from the coast of Ravenna where the new floating terminal will be moored and is focusing on the connection works to the national gas network to enable the link with the FSRU. Snam bought BW LNG’s 2015-built FSRU for roughly $400m in July 2022.
At the peak of activities, more than 1,200 people will be employed, involving over 100 suppliers from the province of Ravenna and the Emilia Romagna Region, with contracts assigned to local companies in the Ravenna area amounting to over 300 million euros.
It is expected that total gas consumption in Italy will fall this year to 62-64 bcm, from 68 bcm in 2022 when a curtailed supply from Russia, mild weather in the winter, and spiralling energy prices reduced fuel demand.
Snam is also developing the first carbon capture and storage project in Ravena which will make it one of the world’s largest sites for CO2 storage and the largest in the Mediterranean. The work on the first phase has reached 60%, and the first CO2 injection is expected in the early months of 2024.
